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OCZ Gladiator MAX Review

Closer Look:

Taking a first look at the OCZ Gladiator MAX, you are going to see that it is a tower shaped heatsink that takes advantage of copper heatpipes and aluminum fins. You can also see that the fins are placed nice and closely together, to increase the surface area to be cooled during usage. This reduces the amount of heat on the heatpipes, which increases the amount of theat to be trasfered to them from the IHS of the processor. The fins are not completely straight, as they have a dip in the middle of them to add some movement to the air that is passing through to cool the fins more effectively. The copper heatpipes come all the way up from the base through all of the fins dumping off the heat that they are passing to the cooler fins. There are a total of four heatpipes that pass through. They are spaced apart from each other, so they can all grab the maximum amount of heat that they can from the processor. The front of the heatsink is flat, while the back side of the fins are angled outwards to form a mound. This is so that the air passing through the fins can grab as much heat off the fins as it can. The overall design of the heatsink is quite aerodynamic in design.

The fan that you can install is an OCZ brand fan, 120mm in size. It operates from 19-26dBA depending on its speed, which can vary from 800-1500RPM. The bearings inside of the fan are Rifle bearings, allowing the fan to be able to run for around 40,000 hours, or four and a half years non stop! OCZ has payed attention to every detail of their Gladiator MAX cooler. The wires coming out of the fan are wrapped in a black heatshrink, making it look nicer.

The base of the cooler is quite unique, as the base that is usually made up of copper and encases all of the heatpipes is thinner than most bases out on the market. This is for the simple fact that the heatpipes have direct contact with the IHS of the processor. This is going to allow for a better heat transfer from the IHS to the heatpipes, that then move all the way up to the top of the cooler passing through all of the fins on their way up. There are two screw holes on either side of the base, which is going to allow you to connect your mounting hardware of choice. I used the Socket 775, as I will be testing using an Intel based system. The base has been machine polished to give it that shiny look, as well as making it flatter, in order to give it better contact with the processor. The top of the cooler looks very simple, however, you are able to see the way that the cooler has been angled back quite nicely. The OCZ logo is in the center of the cooler, just so you remember who made it.

What would be the point of looking at the cooler without the fan installed on the unit, as most everyone will be running the Gladiator with it installed for lower temperatures. As you can see, adding the fan to the Gladiator, makes it take on a whole different look. It looks like something that will actually be able to cool one of our newer processors that get quite warm. With the fan added, you can see that it covers all of the fins, and extends above them a little bit. This ensures that every fin that is on the cooler is going to be able to get the proper airflow to cool down. The fan does attach to the front of the cooler in either a push or a pull configuration.

Now that we know what the cooler looks like, it's time to see what she can do!